Absolution
by solange channonix
Summary: After the war, Duo is lonely and hunted by regrets. As his life loses all meaning, he begins to think about the death, too much and kills for his own pleasure. Will he ever get an absolution and be free of his nightmares ? Can the others help him ?
1. Prologue

I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. They belong to their appropriate owners.   
  
  


Absolution   
by** solange channonix**

**Prologue**

192 AC, Peacemilion 

  
  


Duo took his head up, trying to see something in the darkness of a giant dock. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, getting to see the contours of the giant mobile suit. A Gundam, his Gundam... 

" How do you like it ?" Asked G, kneeling down to Duo's level, putting his hands on the boy's shoulders. 

" Fantastic..." Said Duo almost dreamily, wide smile appearing on his childlish face. 

" That machine serves to kill, Duo, you can't forget about it." 

" I know..." Nodded the boy, his face growing serious. 

" It will make a killer out of you, you'll fight for peace but you'll be a killer indeed. Have you ever killed a man yet ?" 

" Yes." Duo answered immediately. 

It was just a matter of time till Duo would tell more, he was too talkative to leave it at that, so G waited and after a while the boy spoke indeed, softly, very softly. 

" He was trying to stop me from getting medication for my friends, I shot him." Told Duo, sounding very adult as for a twelve years old boy, indeed being just a kid he had the soul of an adult man and brave fighter, it was why he'd been chosen to pilot Deathscythe in the first place.   
  
  
  
  


195 AC, battlefield 

  
  
  


Gundam controls, slick with sweat. Pilot's hands, clutching it too-tightly, sharp, quick, viscious moves. Auburn brows drawn together over dull violet eyes. Maniacal grin quivering the pilot's lips up, whole his body trembling with physical and sensual overload. 

Two days of neverending battle, no sleep, food or a second of peace, nearly out of fuel and still fighting, because to give up was to die and lose and while the first was acceptable if not hoped for, the second was unthinkable for kind of soldier Duo was. 

Another slash of the scythe deprived two Leos of its heads, causing them to explode in a flare. Duo took one hand up to block the sudden offending light, hissing in pain it caused his eyes. He was tired beyond imagination, but that wasn't going to stop him. Another turn of the scythe in the mobile suit's large hands, cutting off another Leo's both arms in one move. 

2317... 2318... 2320... 

Ever since, Duo had been counting people he'd killed, he didn't know what for, but mere thought of not being able to tell the precise number of his victims was causing the fear to creap at his heart while normally he feared hardly at all. So why did he fear this ? So what would it help that he'd know how many... The crime would be there the same, no matter what he'd do. 

2327... 2328...   
  
  


196 AC 

  
  


Strangely silent thud, a bit of light, and it was over. Gundams were gone, only black, burned pieces of Gundamium alloy left. Gundams - mobile suits that nothing beside themselves could destroy, were gone. That event clearly indicated the end of the war. 

It was all over. Duo felt tears forming under his eyelids as the realization hit him. He forced it down, he couldn't cry anymore. He'd let himself spill a few tears while leaving Deathscythe there to be destroyed, while taking his finger down on its self-destruction button, he wouldn't let more out. He wouldn't... 

Duo turned around, to face Quatre and Trowa. Quatre was crying as well, crying and smiling at the same time as he loved Sandrock and peace as much. Trowa was hugging him and letting him do so in his shoulder. Duo felt a distant ache in his chest. There was no one there to comfort him... All was over. What was there left to do after the war had ended, what was there left to care, to fight for ? 

Here he was - in the glory of victory but with hands drenched in blood, barely sixteen years old and yet his life held no sense anymore. Deathscythe was gone, his way of fighting for peace, avenging friends, being important to the others, was closed. There was nothing left... It hurt, nearly too much to bear. 

Duo put his hands in his pockets, excused himself with a lame nervous smile and went away, leaving Trowa and Quatre there. He didn't except to see them, or any other from the ex-Gundam pilots, ever again.   


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	2. Chapter 1

I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. They belong to their appropriate owners. 

Duo's POV   
  
  


Absolution   
by** solange channonix**

**Chapter 1**   


17.04.198 AC   
L3 colony cluster 

  
  
  


I smiled to myself, bringing the glass filled with amber liquid up to the light, to see it go through and change its color. Then I brought it to my lips. 

" Wait..." I muttered to myself before taking a sip. 

I touched my glass with the other one, standing on the table, producing a soft clink. 

" Happy Birthday, Duo !" I told myself. " Happy 18th Birthday..." I whispered and drank whole the content of the glass in one long gulp. 

My lazy grin widened as I felt it burn its way down my throat. Happy 18th Birthday... I repeated in my mind, refilling the glass and tasting liquid fire on my tongue once again. I felt like drinking tonight, like having fun. After all, it was my birthday. 17th April... 

A long time ago I'd decided to have it as my birth date, since I didn't know the real one. A day good as every else to have a little party every year. Just that, no one was willing to join it anymore. Pitiful... Me, such a social creature, you would say, being alone on my birthday. There was no one I could ask to come anymore, no one. 

The glass fell out of my hand and onto the floor, bursting into small pieces. 

I had enough. 

I put my face into my hands and closed my eyes, weird red swirls appearing under my eyelids. It reminded too much of the blood... 

So I opened my eyes, stood up, feeling sudden urge to go out, put my black jacket on and went out, slamming the door shut behind me.   
  
  


I went to the church. Where else would you except me to go ? Where else could I find any measure of peace ? 

I prayed a bit in front of the altar, trying hard to concentrate on what I was doing, not just whisper the words mindlessly, but it was so hard to... So hard to take my mind off my past deeds, so hard not to see the shade of blood on my hands... 

I repeated the words of yet another prayer, kneeling alone in the empty church, frozen in place, my mind somewhere else, so far away and so long time ago. Somewhere, somewhen... Gundam controls or a gun in my hand and the scent of blood, all around, and eyes wide with fear, slowly turning glassy and stopping to see... Hundreds of such pairs of eyes... 

A soft click took me out of the trance. I looked around. A priest had taken his place in the confessional. Still, there was no one beside me and him inside the church. I stood up slowly and went to the confessional, kneeled down and recited all the formulas you're obliged to say. Then the priest told me to confess my sins, but I was silent. 

His voice... 

My throat was strangely clenched and I couldn't mutter a word. What had I done ? I'd killed people, many people... But it wasn't that, I'd confessed it many times in the past years, I couldn't speak because... because it was... 

" Speak, son." He rushed me. 

I'd met that priest once in the past already, I'd confessed to him once already, merely weeks ago, though at a different church. Now there was no way back... 

I swallowed nervously. 

" I killed 3529 people." I told softly, maybe too softly to hear. I hoped that... 

" Two more ?" The priest asked. 

He'd remembered the number. I was... caught ? on doing what ? still killing people, even after the war... 

" Why are you still killing ?" 

I had no answer to this, so I didn't give any. Why was I still killing ? Because I was Shinigami ? Because there was no other way for me to live ? Was it really so ? Then what kind of monster I was ? 

I was waiting for him to say something more, to tell me how wicked I was, to tell me I'd go to hell, to tell me anything, but not to keep me waiting, or to show compassion. Poor little kid, forced to kill as a fifteen-years-old, who has gone mad from that. I hated to be pitied. 

" Why ?" He asked louder. 

I curled, my hands traveling up to hide my face, but I stopped them, clenching them into tight fists at my sides. 

" They were the last. Not anymore, I pr..." 

" Don't give me your word in the face of God for something you can't be sure of." 

So I didn't. These two... Two young people, a man and a woman, a marriage, with a little child. I'd killed each one with a shot through the heart, so they'd had fast and painless death. I was so sorry... 

" You know as well as I do that I can't give you absolution." Told the priest, sounding harsh. 

I nodded and without looking at him again, stood up and turned to go away. I'd known well enough he'd say that, there was no other possibility, but still, once a few weeks I felt the need to confess yet again. Not that repeating what I'd done aloud, over and over again, was helping me much, but it was the last remainder of any human contact involving sincerity in my life and maybe I needed some. 

I flinched, hearing how the priest stood up and got out of the confessional, but I didn't turn around nor stopped walking away. I had nothing more to tell him. Anyway, it was so stupid and careless, to meet the same priest twice. To avoid it, I never visited the same church twice, but it seemed not to be enough. 

" You're a Gundam pilot, aren't you ? Duo Maxwell from L2 ?" 

I continued to walk away. It wasn't so hard to guess who I was, pretty simple, in fact, though he had no law to be remembering what I'd said, to be checking who I was. What did he want from me ? 

I stopped, several meters away from him and half-turned in his direction. 

" You're from the Maxwell's orphanage..." He continued, stopping to walk as well. 

" What do you want ?" I asked harshly. 

" If only Father Maxwell was still alive, he would've..." 

" He's ashamed of me, wherever he is." I cut him off. 

" It isn't what I want to tell you. You, those who were fighting for peace, know no ways to live in the world where it's become reality, but that isn't your fault. You're not meant to suffer." 

" I don't suffer." I told lamely, looking aside. 

He shook his head, not acknowledging my words. 

" Whatever you've done, has helped to build that peaceful world. However many people you've killed, death of every single one from them has saved the life of dozens of others." 

" Why are you telling me this ?" I asked. " Anyway, isn't it that killing is a crime in your religion, no matter who you kill and what for ?! With every single man, dies a whole world, wasn't it ?" 

He blinked several times, but didn't say anything. 

" Tell me, what can I do to help you ?" He asked calmly after a while. 

I looked up at him, standing there with endlessly patient smile on his rounded face. He was one of those who believed that most people are good and whatever they do is equally good. He was wrong thinking like that, especially about me. 

" I don't need help." I told smugly. 

...or rather there was no way to help me anymore... To do so, it would've be needed to turn back the time, so I could've never become Deathscythe's pilot. Only then there wouldn't have been blood on my hands and in the time of still raging war I could've be happy, while others would've suffer, while dozens of others would've suffer... But I'd sacrificed, I'd exchanged my happiness for theirs, and there was no way back now. 

I'd given all away for peace, my happiness, my sanity, my future. It's been worth it, so I don't regret. It's been worth it and lives of all the people I'd killed. What kind of prize are lives of few thousands soldiers, for the lives of millions of civilians ? 

I know it'd been the right thing to do well enough. 

And yet I wouldn't have done it again. 

" What can I do to help you ?" He asked again, ignoring my earlier words. 

I really didn't need his help, I didn't, but maybe... they did ? 

" Pray for the people I've killed." 

Pray for the people who had paid for peace we have now with their lives, with their blood, with tears of those who'd loved them. And pray for me, their executioner. 

Pray for those no one prays for, like if they didn't exist, those not entirely, but only mentally killed in wars. 

" And others like me." 

He nodded. I nodded back and headed to the entrance. 

I was supposed to have fun tonight and I'd have it. Even if my heart is ripped apart, I'd go somewhere noisy and have fun, doing what I'm the best at - pretending everything's okay.   


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	3. Chapter 2

I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. They belong to their appropriate owners. 

Duo's POV   
  
  
  


Absolution   
by** solange channonix**

**Chapter 3**   


21.04.198 AC   
L3 colony cluster 

  
  
  
  


It was the time. I woke up today as the first rays of the sun crept into my bedroom through the dark curtains and decided it was the time again. I got up, got dressed in my black clothes, grabbed a slice of cold pizza and went out, slamming the door shut behind me. 

My neighbour looked up at me anxiously as I brushed past her eating my pizza. She was a student, learning whole nights and so, always angry at me for making the noise. The noise of cracking glass, screams of passion and pleasure if some girl happened to follow me home. I could understand her, but I didn't care. I'd done enough for others, thanks to us, the soldiers, she could now live peacefully and study at all, I'd lost close to everything for others, so now, I didn't feel obliged to care anymore. 

I could be nicer, I know. I'd used to be so nice... 

... and I'd gotten nothing from that. I'd been trying so hard to make friends with everyone and I'd been as stupid as to think I'd managed, at least in some cases, and only then, I'd gotten to know I hadn't. Sweepers, G and Howard had needed me only as long as I'd been fighting in the war by their side, piloting Deathscythe, other pilots as well. Quatre was as nice to me as to everyone else, the rest hadn't bothered even that much. Only Hilde had been truly caring for me, but now it was over, she was married and to her as well I'd become a burden. 

For God's sake, I wasn't hiding. You could take an address book for my colony and find my name there and if they asked Hilde, she knew where to find me. I'd been even trying to contact Quatre, just to talk to someone, just to change a few words, but he hadn't been there nor had been willing to call then, though I'd left a message. I'd been even trying to find Heero, I'd sent messages at all his e-mail accounts I knew about. Well, maybe he wasn't using them anymore, maybe, rather, he didn't care. 

They'd all left me alone and gone their own ways... all of them, even him and I... I'd been thinking I'd gotten through to him, that we'd become friends, after the first war, we'd been sharing an apartment for a year and it hadn't been that bad. He could be nice, in his own way, strange way, but one could get used to it. 

I missed him, I missed all of them, I missed Hilde, I missed all of those close to me who'd died even before the war, who hadn't place in their lives for me. I missed any human contact, I still craved for it and yet, I was still alone. 

After the years of occupation and the war, people in colonies and especially on L3, weren't trustful. They'd rather not let know too much about themselves to strangers. They would drink with you and blabber stupidities, they'd go to bed with you and disappear the next morning, but never let you know much, let you get close. 

They all feared. They all feared to care, because some Barton, Alliance's soldiers, OZ or whatever else could come and take all you care for away and make you suffer. The more you care, the more you suffer then, so to care was an dangerous thing. As well as to let out something of your past, like that you'd been an Alliance's soldier, had sympathized with OZ, had been in Mariemaia's army, or in White Fang, or that someone from your family or your boyfriend had been. No one would talk with you sincerely and you'd make a fool of yourself doing so or smiling so carelessly how I'd used to do. 

There was no place on that colony and at that time for that, no place for old Duo Maxwell, who, not to mention, hadn't as much of mental strength as to still smile so lively. 

My mask was cracking... I was still smiling feeling the tears collecting under my eyelids, I still could do that, but not as well. Someone who'd known me in the past would've seen the difference, so much more mournful eyes... so much of blood on my hands... 

I wasn't feeling here too well, but I couldn't leave. I had a job here and a new task in four days. I shouldn't be wasting my time for such things, but, that morning, I'd just felt like it and again, acted on an impulse. 

I needed to go to a graveyard, to the graveyard designated for the victims of the last two wars, where there were buried all of the corpses found on the streets of that colony or floating in the space around it and where there were white marble boards rendering the missing ones memorable, where there were lying those killed in the last battle, also those killed by my hands. 

That graveyard was beckoning me, once in a while, a silent place the importance of could be felt in the air, in the sounds and voices of birds, in the immensity of the transparent dome over it, separating it from the rest of the colony, so it would be that clean and silent. Because of that graveyard, I'd chosen that colony as a place to stay in the first place, over all of the others from the L3 cluster. 

I went through the gate, passing by a giant statue, an angel with a sword guarding the peace of that place. It wasn't to be destroyed in any war, any future war could be only the source of new corpses, never its destruction. They were supposed to stay here, all of those I'd killed, so no one, and especially not me, was able to forget about them. If it was to convince people that wars were pointless, that we shouldn't start them ever again, then it was working on me. 

Then there were just graves and boards, all white, all shining, parted by a net of narrow paths. Most of them had no names on them, just the circumstances of finding the corpse and supposed age. There were thousands of them... counting those only mentioned on the boards, millions. 

I'd heard there was something similar built on L2 V08744, in the place where the Maxwell's Church had used to be. And as a proof that I was to be found if someone looked for me, I'd gotten an invitation to the opening, planned to be the 29th April, as a witness of the massacre. I wasn't sure yet if I was even going to go there, maybe to be forced to talk about the massacre, about my friends killed there and still excepted to be just a bit sad, not to cry and scream from mental pain, not to go crazy then and there... 

I advanced among the graves, passing by, looking for the section of those killed in the last battle, finally finding it. A separated square of graves, all bearing the very same date. Here was buried the most of the last victims of the first war, not counting only those whose families wanted otherwise and there weren't many. On Earth, there were graveyards and corpses were buried, at the colonies, they were cremated and the ashes freed into space, so most of the families, the colonists or those who couldn't afford taking the corpses to Earth, let them be buried at this graveyard, one of the few at the colonies. 

Here were my victims. Thousands of graves and some of them were here because of me. 

Standing there, looking numbly before me, on the strangely empty cemetery, I heard a chant. I followed it to its source, curious as to what was happening. In the middle of the spherical graveyard, there was a white chapel under a silver dome. From there was coming the chant and people were gathered around it, all dressed in black. 

I came closer, looking at the entrance of the chapel, two coffins, white and shining like everything here, being carried towards the empty section, behind the chapel, each one by four men dressed all in black, like everyone here, including myself. 

Strangely transfixed, I was approaching them, pushing people aside, I sped up, following the procession, the coffins, the corpses. I was close enough to see them, their faces. A woman, seemingly young, dressed in a long, white, not black, dress, with a wrap put over her chest, covering something that should not be seen. Her face, her pale face with slightly parted lips, a calm smile, long lashes making deep shadows dance over her white cheeks. Long, fair, nearly white hair, slightly curly... 

It was her, the one I'd killed. 

She had to be an important figure, buried here because of that, along with her husband, followed by such a funeral procession. The wrap over her chest was placed where I'd shot her, to cover up the mortal wound. It had to... 

I heard a scream, a high pitched voice screaming in utter horror. 

I squirmed and turned viciously around. A little girl was standing just behind me, pointing out at me and screaming. Her wide open, large green eyes bore into mine, judging me, being engraved by my memory to hunt me in my future nightmares, as she was screaming, louder and louder, in a such a terrified, shrieking voice. It was their daughter, the child I'd orphaned, one of the many, but never had I faced one. I... 

When I'd executed her parents, the woman had been holding her in her arms, so I'd shot next to her, not hurting her at all. I hadn't been close, but still, she'd had to see me, or maybe, she just knew, somehow. 

Someone hugged her, but she wouldn't stop. People were staring at who she was pointing out, refusing to stop screaming in horror, at me, judging, imposing a sentence... Her wide open, impossibly large green eyes, so innocent and so dark with pain and despair, maybe as much as my own were. I... 

I needed to flee. 

I started to run and strangely, no one followed me, but I was running still, towards the exit, towards the freedom, out of the yard of the dead ones, back to the living's world, out of that place hunting me in my nightmares, beckoning in the reality. Away from those green eyes, so innocent and so broken... 

I could still hear her shrieking voice, ringing in my ears, making my head throb, my heart beat so quickly, too quickly, from fear she would tell them, that I'd get caught. I didn't fear the punishment, I feared only the question `why ?`. 

I ran through the gate and slowed only there, as I became a part of an ordinary crowd of the street. Walking slowly, I was trying to calm, to forget, to wash the image of that child's eyes away from under my eyelids. I'd killed her parents... 

So what ? She wasn't the first one nor the only one I'd orphaned, but her eyes... her eyes... I hadn't been forced to be looking into the eyes of every child I'd orphaned, to compare them to my own. 

I headed back to my apartment and once there, reached out for a mirror and looked into my own eyes, dark blue blurred into amethyst and as much of despair and pain as in hers. Though while I was broken, she was just terrified. For her it would pass, she'd forget, for me the nightmare would never end, for me all of that was replaying every single night, every single moment. And I was doing that to myself, because I didn't want to forget, to lose the past which was all I had. I was still killing, because the pain, despair and nightmares were all I had, without them and no chances to replace them with anything, I'd ceased to exist. 

I couldn't stop killing, I was the God of the Death, I was killing and orphaning children, it was just the way things were supposed to be. Regrets would hunt me, but they were the only content of my life, they were all I had. The eyes of that child girl, coming back to me in my nightmares, were all I had. 

I turned the mirror away, unable to be looking anymore into my own eyes, like I couldn't look into hers. 

I was feeling bad, dizzy, kind of... Something was ripping the remnants of my heart to shreds again, something, the memory of those eyes, of the death of that woman, one of so many I'd seen. She'd been smiling so brilliantly just before she'd died and I'd turned her into cold corpse that couldn't be the mother for that little girl anymore, like someone had had to do with my own mother, all those years ago. 

I'd committed so many other sins, murdered so many other people, that that one crime wouldn't even count, if there was anything at the other side. There was no reason to be thinking about it, instead of getting ready to complete another task. I had a work to do, there was no time for regrets, not now, not yet. In a few days, when I'd be done. 

As for now... I reached for another bottle of whisky, drinking it slowly in long gulps from the bottle, soothing my pained heart, or rather, what was there left of it after all of this, after so many years of doing so terrible things and still caring, still counting, just to be able to torment myself more.   
  


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	4. Chapter 3

I do not own Gundam Wing or its characters. They belong to their appropriate owners. 

Duo's POV   
  
  
  


Absolution   
by** solange channonix**

**Chapter 3**   


21.04.198 AC   
L3 colony cluster 

  
  
  
  


It was the time. I woke up today as the first rays of the sun crept into my bedroom through the dark curtains and decided it was the time again. I got up, got dressed in my black clothes, grabbed a slice of cold pizza and went out, slamming the door shut behind me. 

My neighbour looked up at me anxiously as I brushed past her eating my pizza. She was a student, learning whole nights and so, always angry at me for making the noise. The noise of cracking glass, screams of passion and pleasure if some girl happened to follow me home. I could understand her, but I didn't care. I'd done enough for others, thanks to us, the soldiers, she could now live peacefully and study at all, I'd lost close to everything for others, so now, I didn't feel obliged to care anymore. 

I could be nicer, I know. I'd used to be so nice... 

... and I'd gotten nothing from that. I'd been trying so hard to make friends with everyone and I'd been as stupid as to think I'd managed, at least in some cases, and only then, I'd gotten to know I hadn't. Sweepers, G and Howard had needed me only as long as I'd been fighting in the war by their side, piloting Deathscythe, other pilots as well. Quatre was as nice to me as to everyone else, the rest hadn't bothered even that much. Only Hilde had been truly caring for me, but now it was over, she was married and to her as well I'd become a burden. 

For God's sake, I wasn't hiding. You could take an address book for my colony and find my name there and if they asked Hilde, she knew where to find me. I'd been even trying to contact Quatre, just to talk to someone, just to change a few words, but he hadn't been there nor had been willing to call then, though I'd left a message. I'd been even trying to find Heero, I'd sent messages at all his e-mail accounts I knew about. Well, maybe he wasn't using them anymore, maybe, rather, he didn't care. 

They'd all left me alone and gone their own ways... all of them, even him and I... I'd been thinking I'd gotten through to him, that we'd become friends, after the first war, we'd been sharing an apartment for a year and it hadn't been that bad. He could be nice, in his own way, strange way, but one could get used to it. 

I missed him, I missed all of them, I missed Hilde, I missed all of those close to me who'd died even before the war, who hadn't place in their lives for me. I missed any human contact, I still craved for it and yet, I was still alone. 

After the years of occupation and the war, people in colonies and especially on L3, weren't trustful. They'd rather not let know too much about themselves to strangers. They would drink with you and blabber stupidities, they'd go to bed with you and disappear the next morning, but never let you know much, let you get close. 

They all feared. They all feared to care, because some Barton, Alliance's soldiers, OZ or whatever else could come and take all you care for away and make you suffer. The more you care, the more you suffer then, so to care was an dangerous thing. As well as to let out something of your past, like that you'd been an Alliance's soldier, had sympathized with OZ, had been in Mariemaia's army, or in White Fang, or that someone from your family or your boyfriend had been. No one would talk with you sincerely and you'd make a fool of yourself doing so or smiling so carelessly how I'd used to do. 

There was no place on that colony and at that time for that, no place for old Duo Maxwell, who, not to mention, hadn't as much of mental strength as to still smile so lively. 

My mask was cracking... I was still smiling feeling the tears collecting under my eyelids, I still could do that, but not as well. Someone who'd known me in the past would've seen the difference, so much more mournful eyes... so much of blood on my hands... 

I wasn't feeling here too well, but I couldn't leave. I had a job here and a new task in four days. I shouldn't be wasting my time for such things, but, that morning, I'd just felt like it and again, acted on an impulse. 

I needed to go to a graveyard, to the graveyard designated for the victims of the last two wars, where there were buried all of the corpses found on the streets of that colony or floating in the space around it and where there were white marble boards rendering the missing ones memorable, where there were lying those killed in the last battle, also those killed by my hands. 

That graveyard was beckoning me, once in a while, a silent place the importance of could be felt in the air, in the sounds and voices of birds, in the immensity of the transparent dome over it, separating it from the rest of the colony, so it would be that clean and silent. Because of that graveyard, I'd chosen that colony as a place to stay in the first place, over all of the others from the L3 cluster. 

I went through the gate, passing by a giant statue, an angel with a sword guarding the peace of that place. It wasn't to be destroyed in any war, any future war could be only the source of new corpses, never its destruction. They were supposed to stay here, all of those I'd killed, so no one, and especially not me, was able to forget about them. If it was to convince people that wars were pointless, that we shouldn't start them ever again, then it was working on me. 

Then there were just graves and boards, all white, all shining, parted by a net of narrow paths. Most of them had no names on them, just the circumstances of finding the corpse and supposed age. There were thousands of them... counting those only mentioned on the boards, millions. 

I'd heard there was something similar built on L2 V08744, in the place where the Maxwell's Church had used to be. And as a proof that I was to be found if someone looked for me, I'd gotten an invitation to the opening, planned to be the 29th April, as a witness of the massacre. I wasn't sure yet if I was even going to go there, maybe to be forced to talk about the massacre, about my friends killed there and still excepted to be just a bit sad, not to cry and scream from mental pain, not to go crazy then and there... 

I advanced among the graves, passing by, looking for the section of those killed in the last battle, finally finding it. A separated square of graves, all bearing the very same date. Here was buried the most of the last victims of the first war, not counting only those whose families wanted otherwise and there weren't many. On Earth, there were graveyards and corpses were buried, at the colonies, they were cremated and the ashes freed into space, so most of the families, the colonists or those who couldn't afford taking the corpses to Earth, let them be buried at this graveyard, one of the few at the colonies. 

Here were my victims. Thousands of graves and some of them were here because of me. 

Standing there, looking numbly before me, on the strangely empty cemetery, I heard a chant. I followed it to its source, curious as to what was happening. In the middle of the spherical graveyard, there was a white chapel under a silver dome. From there was coming the chant and people were gathered around it, all dressed in black. 

I came closer, looking at the entrance of the chapel, two coffins, white and shining like everything here, being carried towards the empty section, behind the chapel, each one by four men dressed all in black, like everyone here, including myself. 

Strangely transfixed, I was approaching them, pushing people aside, I sped up, following the procession, the coffins, the corpses. I was close enough to see them, their faces. A woman, seemingly young, dressed in a long, white, not black, dress, with a wrap put over her chest, covering something that should not be seen. Her face, her pale face with slightly parted lips, a calm smile, long lashes making deep shadows dance over her white cheeks. Long, fair, nearly white hair, slightly curly... 

It was her, the one I'd killed. 

She had to be an important figure, buried here because of that, along with her husband, followed by such a funeral procession. The wrap over her chest was placed where I'd shot her, to cover up the mortal wound. It had to... 

I heard a scream, a high pitched voice screaming in utter horror. 

I squirmed and turned viciously around. A little girl was standing just behind me, pointing out at me and screaming. Her wide open, large green eyes bore into mine, judging me, being engraved by my memory to hunt me in my future nightmares, as she was screaming, louder and louder, in a such a terrified, shrieking voice. It was their daughter, the child I'd orphaned, one of the many, but never had I faced one. I... 

When I'd executed her parents, the woman had been holding her in her arms, so I'd shot next to her, not hurting her at all. I hadn't been close, but still, she'd had to see me, or maybe, she just knew, somehow. 

Someone hugged her, but she wouldn't stop. People were staring at who she was pointing out, refusing to stop screaming in horror, at me, judging, imposing a sentence... Her wide open, impossibly large green eyes, so innocent and so dark with pain and despair, maybe as much as my own were. I... 

I needed to flee. 

I started to run and strangely, no one followed me, but I was running still, towards the exit, towards the freedom, out of the yard of the dead ones, back to the living's world, out of that place hunting me in my nightmares, beckoning in the reality. Away from those green eyes, so innocent and so broken... 

I could still hear her shrieking voice, ringing in my ears, making my head throb, my heart beat so quickly, too quickly, from fear she would tell them, that I'd get caught. I didn't fear the punishment, I feared only the question `why ?`. 

I ran through the gate and slowed only there, as I became a part of an ordinary crowd of the street. Walking slowly, I was trying to calm, to forget, to wash the image of that child's eyes away from under my eyelids. I'd killed her parents... 

So what ? She wasn't the first one nor the only one I'd orphaned, but her eyes... her eyes... I hadn't been forced to be looking into the eyes of every child I'd orphaned, to compare them to my own. 

I headed back to my apartment and once there, reached out for a mirror and looked into my own eyes, dark blue blurred into amethyst and as much of despair and pain as in hers. Though while I was broken, she was just terrified. For her it would pass, she'd forget, for me the nightmare would never end, for me all of that was replaying every single night, every single moment. And I was doing that to myself, because I didn't want to forget, to lose the past which was all I had. I was still killing, because the pain, despair and nightmares were all I had, without them and no chances to replace them with anything, I'd ceased to exist. 

I couldn't stop killing, I was the God of the Death, I was killing and orphaning children, it was just the way things were supposed to be. Regrets would hunt me, but they were the only content of my life, they were all I had. The eyes of that child girl, coming back to me in my nightmares, were all I had. 

I turned the mirror away, unable to be looking anymore into my own eyes, like I couldn't look into hers. 

I was feeling bad, dizzy, kind of... Something was ripping the remnants of my heart to shreds again, something, the memory of those eyes, of the death of that woman, one of so many I'd seen. She'd been smiling so brilliantly just before she'd died and I'd turned her into cold corpse that couldn't be the mother for that little girl anymore, like someone had had to do with my own mother, all those years ago. 

I'd committed so many other sins, murdered so many other people, that that one crime wouldn't even count, if there was anything at the other side. There was no reason to be thinking about it, instead of getting ready to complete another task. I had a work to do, there was no time for regrets, not now, not yet. In a few days, when I'd be done. 

As for now... I reached for another bottle of whisky, drinking it slowly in long gulps from the bottle, soothing my pained heart, or rather, what was there left of it after all of this, after so many years of doing so terrible things and still caring, still counting, just to be able to torment myself more.   
  


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